A tire recycling business in Delmar has been ordered to halt operations and could face thousands of dollars in fines in what is believed to be the state's first crackdown under Delaware's new scrap tire regulations.

Anderson's Recycling at 9320 Old Racetrack Road has ignored repeated demands to comply with new state rules that took effect in April, according to state regulators.

The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control sent a cease-and-desist letter to business owner Thomas L. Anderson Sr. over the weekend.

A phone number listed on the company's Facebook page was out of service on Monday. Anderson did not answer calls at his Harbeson home.

DNREC regulators say they also failed to get a response in multiple attempts to contact Anderson between February and late May.

Regulators claim they did see Anderson transporting scrap tires along a public roadway without a permit to do so.

The order signed by DNREC Secretary Shawn Garvin on Saturday demands that Anderson and his recycling business stop accepting, storing, processing or transporting scrap tires for at least 30 days.

The order comes less than six months after DNREC instituted new regulations governing businesses that accumulate 100 or more scrap tires at any one time.

Auto dealerships, tire repair shops, junkyards and other so-called "scrap tire generators" that meet the 100-tire threshold are now required to pay an annual permit fee between $50 and $350, depending on the size of their tire pile and how tires are stored.

Those businesses are required to submit detailed information to DNREC about their scrap tire facilities, the steps they are taking to prevent fires and control mosquitos and evidence that the tires are being removed and transported to an authorized storage, disposal or recycling facility.

The regulations were created in response to a 2006 bill passed by the General Assembly and signed by then-Gov. Ruth Ann Minner.

The legislation also created a $2 surcharge on every tire sold in the state used to fund the Scrap Tire Removal Program, a pot of money to help private landowners clean up large piles of scrap tires. Instituted nearly a decade ago, that fund has so far helped to remove 25,000 tons of tires from 160 sites around Delaware, mostly in Sussex County.

DNREC did not institute the rules governing scrap tire facilities until this year – a decade-long delay regulators have attributed to a lack of funding and staffing.

Agency officials admitted last month that they have little idea which companies have scrap tire stockpiles. Scrap tire generators also have complained that they were not made aware of the new rules.

DNREC says it sent out multiple letters between early 2016 and early 2017 to notify 1,600 businesses that they may have to apply for a scrap tire facility permit by mid-April. State regulators are now in the process of visiting every one of those businesses to determine whether they are in compliance.

Regulators say they have reason to believe the scrap tire pile owned by Anderson is in violation of the law, including an April satellite photo of the site on Google Earth that appears to show "thousands" of tires on the property – making the facility illegal and ineligible for a permit.

State regulators claim they were unable to gain access to Anderson's Recycling during a visit on May 26. But they could see more than 100 tires on the property from the street.

The business owner has 20 days to appeal DNREC's cease-and-desist order or give regulators access to the property and submit a plan to remove the massive tire pile, DNREC officials said.